BlueScope Steel to buy New Zealand company

Melbourne, Australia-based BlueScope Steel has announced plans to purchase the assets of Fletcher Building’s Pacific Steel for NZ$120 million (US$100 million). BlueScope already owns New Zealand Steel, which operates an integrated Glenbrook steel mill near Auckland, New Zealand. The company is seeking to complete the deal by the middle of 2014.

The deal is expected to result in the closure of Fletcher’s Otahuhu, New Zealand, electric arc furnace mill by the end of 2015.

The closure of the Otahuhu mill is likely to see a jump in exports of scrap steel that used to be melted at the mill. BlueScope's Glenbrook plant uses iron sands sourced locally as its primary feedstock.

BlueScope will pay $60 million for Pacific Steel's long products rolling and marketing operations and pay about $60 million for its working capital, according to a statement from Auckland-based Fletcher, which expects a one-time net gain of about $19 million.

BlueScope will pay half the $60 million price of the assets upfront and the remainder once it has commissioned a new billet caster, expected to be operational by the end of 2015.

BlueScope, through its New Zealand Steel subsidiary, will spend around $50 million to build a billet caster at a site in Glenbrook. Until then, Fletcher will in the short term continue to operate the Otahuhu mill and supply BlueScope with billet on commercial terms. Fletcher also owns 50 percent of Sims Pacific Metals.

The sale includes Pacific Steel’s rolling mill and wire drawing facilities at Otahuhu and its Fijian rolling mill. Once BlueScope’s billet caster is running, NZ Steel will supply billet to the rolling mills at Otahuhu and in Fiji.

Hardface Technologies, a Cleveland-based business unit of Postle Industries, has introduced a product that it says will be “the ultimate hardfacing wire for tire shredding knives.”

The company says its Postalloy Ultra-Shred 580 is a metal-cored, gas-shielded wire with numerous tightly packed carbides for excellent abrasion resistance under high impact. One layer deposits exhibit wear characteristics that would be expected from a chromium carbide hardfacing product, Hardface Technologies adds.

Hardface says the knife’s alloy properties create a resistant cutting edge, even under the high heat conditions created by extreme friction. Deposits are slag free and exhibit a hardness of 55-58 Rc on the Rockwell scale of hardness.

“Postalloy Ultra-Shred 580 has proven to be an exceptional way to hardface tire shredding knives," says Russ Speese, Hardface Technologies vice president of sales and marketing. “Beyond that application the product has also seen great success in other areas, including cutting tools, shear blades and hot or cold trim dies.”

Hardface Technologies manufactures a range of what it calls wear-resistant solutions for applications in a variety of industries. The company’s hardfacing products, which it says have been engineered specifically for high wear environments, are available through the company’s worldwide distribution network.

Recycler welcomes new UK MRF regulations

ECO Plastics Ltd., a United Kingdom-based company that makes recycled-content pellets from bottle scrap , says it welcomes the publication of the U.K. government’s new regulations for material recycling facilities (MRFs).

The regulations, unveiled by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in early February, confirm that mandatory quality requirements for MRFs will be introduced in October 2014.

In a news release, the company says that more needs to be done in order to safeguard the domestic industry. While ECO Plastics and others in the plastics recycling industry have applauded the move as an essential first step, the company says it is dismayed the government has failed to back up the regulations with other key measures.

“We are pleased that the government has understood the importance of tackling the declining quality of the U.K.’s waste stream and introduced a compulsory Code of Practice, and that the system will be actively policed by the Environment Agency,” says Jonathan Short, deputy chairman and founder of ECO Plastics. “Full transparency through the publication of testing results is another important step that will pay dividends in increasing industry confidence.”

Short continues, “That said, regulations are only as valuable as the inspection process used to enforce them, and the sampling quantities and frequency of testing envisioned is a long way below what is needed to come close to robustly measuring the quality of inputs and outputs. There is a very real concern that MRFs that do not wish to comply will be able to flout the rules because of the extent to which the process has been watered down.”

Short says an insistence on higher quality output was seen as a threat by some waste management companies. “It is frustrating that some companies have only viewed the code from a negative perspective. MRFs should embrace the regulations as the tool to deliver the industry-wide improvement which will drive up the pricing of the entire market, adding value for all stakeholders. I continue to look forward to the day when I no longer receive 18 percent contamination in my feedstock.”

UK firm lands offshore rig recycling contract

Birmingham, England-based Able UK has been awarded a contract for the disposal of four offshore structures from the Shell-operated Brent Field in the North Sea.

The contract includes dismantling and scrapping three platform topsides as well as a 138-meter-high steel platform jacket, which will be transported from the Brent field to Able Seaton’s port in Teesside, United Kingdom, about 100 miles away.

“We are delighted to have been selected to undertake this significant platform decommissioning project,” says Andrew Jacques, Able UK’s managing director. “This six-year contract will see the deployment of the very latest techniques and technologies in the recycling of these materials. We are looking forward to working with our partners on this project, and we are justifiably proud to have been selected for this exciting project.”

Jacques continues, “Able Seaton Port is already a superb facility and it will see further investment from Able UK Ltd. with the construction of what will be one of Europe’s heaviest load bearing quays, along with associated infrastructure at the northern end of the dry dock to receive the structures. This will enable the topsides and jackets to be shipped to the new quay for dismantling.”

The company anticipates that more than 97 percent of the structures will be reused or recycled.

Securis awards franchises serving Maryland and Delaware

Securis Franchising Inc., headquartered in Chantilly, Va., has announced that it has awarded its first three franchises in the Mid-Atlantic region. Securis says its franchising strategy is part of the company’s national expansion to serve growing demand for electronics recycling and data destruction services, a market that is estimated at between $6 billion to $9 billion globally, according to reports by IDC and Transparent Research.

Awards include counties in the Maryland suburbs outside of Washington, D.C., as well as the state of Delaware, with service in these territories slated to begin by summer of 2014. Numerous additional protected territories are available in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina, with more expected to be released in 2014 and beyond, the company says.

“From the moment we launched the Securis franchise concept in spring 2013, we’ve seen intense interest from hundreds of aspiring business owners who recognize the unique opportunity,” Securis CEO and founder Jeremy Farber says. “After meeting with dozens of prospects, we are very excited to have selected our first three franchisees and look forward to awarding additional territories in 2014.”

Farber adds, “Securis’ clients, including organizations in the federal government, financial services, health care and government contracting sectors, demand world-class data security and environmental stewardship that is delivered consistently across all of their locations. Our franchise expansion helps us put our operations closer to these customer locations so we can better serve them.”

Originally founded as PC Recycler in 2000 and based in the Washington, D.C.-metro area, Securis is an industry-leading provider of information technology asset disposal (ITAD), including electronics recycling, auditing, hard drive shredding and other data destruction services for PCs, laptops, mobile phones, servers, monitors, copiers, printers and other data storage devices and electronics scrap. In 2012 and 2013, the company was named to the Inc. 500/5000 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States.

Securis has earned an R2 (Responsible Recycling) certification, which is designed to ensure the company uses practices that protect the environment, human health, safety and the security of the recycling process. Additionally, Securis is approved by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and certified by National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) as well as the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Logistics Information Service.